Issue with black blotches (help!)

I got some weird black blotches when processing with
RawTherapee_dev_5.8-2735-g8bb06c2_20210121.AppImage

If I remove Capture Sharpening and Chromatic Aberration Auto Correct, the issue gues away. So perhaps it is broken in g8bb06c2_20210121

however the older RawTherapee_dev_5.8-2701-gb8d5a3d_20210102.AppImage
does not produce them.

RawTherapee_dev_5.8-2735-g8bb06c2_20210121.AppImage

RawTherapee_dev_5.8-2701-gb8d5a3d_20210102.AppImage

RAW: S7_09850.ARW (47.3 MB)
PP3: S7_09850.ARW.pp3 (13.5 KB)

The reason seems to be, or related to, the capture sharpening module.

I have a really strange motive all over the image when I open your image+pp3 in the appimage (stable, 5.8) and zoom to 100%. It disappears when I turn the capture sharpening off and then on again. It does not return if I now stop-start RawTherapee with this image.

When using the latest development (5.8-2780-g3b39ff384) I see the black blotches/squares (about the same as can be seen in your above image). Same thing happens when I turn on/off capture sharpening: Blotch is gone afterwards, does not return.

Here’s a screenshot of the motive I’m seeing in the stable, appimage version:

Interesting…

thanks for checking it out! in my case I have to turn off both capture sharpening and aberration correction in order for them to go away. previous version works fine

Thanks for reporting. I can reproduce the issue, but only when using Amaze+Bilinear

@heckflosse in my case, using version g8bb06c2_20210121 I tested all the demosaic methods and they all gave the issue :frowning:

Disabling highlight reconstruction fixes it here.

Can confirm disabling highlights reconstruction does fix it. Yet version 5.8-2735-g8bb06c2_20210121 had no issue even with highlights reconstruction.

There was a change to highlight reconstruction method colour propagation not long ago
@jdc

That would actually explain it, since you don’t even need to turn reconstruction off, you just have to switch it to Blend for the black blotches to go away.

I can confirm all @heckflosse’s comments and more:

Using the latest development version:

  • It only shows when using amaze+bilinear,
  • Turning off highlight reconstruction fixes it (only colour propagation shows this),
  • Turning off chromatic aberration-> auto-correction fixes it,
  • Turning off capture sharpening fixes it.

Also tried all the other modules that are turned on in @stefan.chirila’s pp3. None of those show any effect.

I can reproduce this even more generally:

  • Start from Neutral
  • Choose any demosaicer you like
  • Push the White Point up to 5 or something high (this aggravates the effect)
  • Set Highlight reconstruction to Color propagation

Boom, artifacts.

I have traced it to this commit by @jdc backporting something from ART, so @agriggio might also want to have a look for himself Improve HLreconstruction color propagation - best transitions - code … · Beep6581/RawTherapee@b554f52 · GitHub

What I don’t understand is why a core method was casually changed without mention anywhere.

1 Like

That I also don’t understand. Even more, by that change it got a serious slowdown…

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Sorry, its my fault.
Probably the best solution is to disabled this improvment
Promised, i won’t do it again
Sorry again
Jacques

Well, let’s Alberto have a look first. If things are not problematic in ART, then we might as well revert. But if things can be fixed, there may be a very nice improvement to the reconstruction.

@Thanatomanic @heckflosse

This change followed a discussion on Darktable in january, and Alberto @agriggio made proposals to improve HR. They have been tested by ART users, and by myself. The improvement is significant.

But, it leads to a slowdown and in some cases to bad behaviour.

Considering the positive opinions, I didn’t go through the “issue” stage of RT, it’s a mistake? but who doesn’t make mistakes?

Sorry again

Jacques

I tried reproducing in ART but I couldn’t, fwiw

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I’ve also seen this. I use RCD/vng demosaic. It appears in the highlights with colour propagation.

@agriggio I can reproduce it in (edit: current dev build of) ART, can you try with this arp? S7_09850.ARW.arp (10.8 KB)

Confirmed, thanks! Here’s a fix (the patch is for ART, might need to be adapted for RT):

diff --git a/rtengine/hilite_recon.cc b/rtengine/hilite_recon.cc
--- a/rtengine/hilite_recon.cc
+++ b/rtengine/hilite_recon.cc
@@ -951,7 +951,7 @@
 #endif
         for (int y = 0; y < H2; ++y) {
             for (int x = 0; x < W2; ++x) {
-                guide[y][x] = Color::igamma_srgb(Color::rgbLuminance(rbuf[y][x], gbuf[y][x], bbuf[y][x], imatrices.xyz_cam));
+                guide[y][x] = CLIP(Color::igamma_srgb(Color::rgbLuminance(rbuf[y][x], gbuf[y][x], bbuf[y][x], imatrices.xyz_cam)));
             }
         }
     }